quite a few issues were fixed during the betas and stress tests - but have reappeared with the stresses of a live server. others are brand new as far as i know, especially some of the login issues people are getting.

some of them are still being worked on (and yeah, some of them have a pretty strong impact, making them top priority.

essentially - it would appear that server load has caused the problems, or at least significantly contributed to them. while i personally wish it had been a little smoother (and their Support personnel are rather lacking imho) it's reasonable to say they couldn't have been fully prepared for live server loads. certainly it would have been better if everything had been fully ready for today, but hopefully it won't take much longer to stabilise everything properly now.

Danny, they've released updates pretty much daily to address _every issue noticed_. Also, on facebook they've posted like 10 times a day or so to keep people on top of things as to what expect to not work and that they're actually working on it. :)

All I can say is that they're more vocal and take action faster than the whole of LOTRO dev crew have been doing, during the soon 2 years I've played. :p

neth, ANet are better than turbine were more than 5 years ago on ANY issue

danny, difference with Blizz/Diablo 3 and ANet/GW2? ANet give a damn about their customers, and although some of the issues do affect gameplay, the main part of the game is in solid shape (as far as can be determined at this early stage, anyway.)

Hal wrote:That's cause the original Diablo crew had jumped ship to arenanet

The REALLY good people behind Diablo and Diablo II (and StarCraft) however - meaning the key people at Blizzard North (Schaefer, Roper etc.) - instead went to form Flagship Studios and later Cryptic and Runic Games; which btw are soon to announce the release of Torchlight II! They did not move to ArenaNet. =P

Hal wrote:That's cause the original Diablo crew had jumped ship to arenanet

The REALLY good people behind Diablo and Diablo II (and StarCraft) however - meaning the key people at Blizzard North (Schaefer, Roper etc.) - instead went to form Flagship Studios and later Cryptic and Runic Games; which btw are soon to announce the release of Torchlight II! They did not move to ArenaNet. =P

I am well aware of this link Arc, and whilst I don't deny that they are talented people, and this shows in games such a torchlight, I think you mis-represent how much the original Arenanet employees contributed to Blizzard's success

Mike O'Brien - Company director and a lead programmer at Blizzard Entertainment. Developed the 3D rendering engine of Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos and led the development of Battle.net. Also worked on Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness, Diablo and StarCraft, where he, among other things, designed and created the MPQ archives used in all Blizzard games after Diablo. Featured as one of the most influential people in the computer and video game industry on PC Gamer's September 1999 cover story "Game Gods".

Patrick Wyatt - Vice President of Research and Development and Senior programmer at Blizzard Entertainment. Leader of Battle.net gaming network's programming. Major contributor on the multiplayer parts StarCraft, Diablo and Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness. Works also includes earlier Blizzard games like Lost Vikings and Rock N' Roll Racing.

Jeff Strain - Lead programmer of Blizzard's MMORPG World of Warcraft. Also created StarCraft campaign editor. Worked on Diablo and Warcraft III.

These are just the 3 original founding members of Arena-net, not including the many other former Blizzard staff that joined them. And whilst I agree that other talented people remained in Blizzard or went on to found other companies, I think its worth noting that these people were amongst the most influential people in Blizzard at the time, and their expertise has shown. Whilst companies like Cryptic and Runic Games have created solid games and a name for themselves, none of them enjoy the critical acclaim that Arena-net has received for Guild Wars, not to mention Guild Wars 2